RetirementHomes.com - Hospice Care

What Hospice Care Does

aadmin — Fri, 11 Apr 2014 09:47:33 +0000

Hospice is a special type of health care for terminally ill patients and their families. Hospice care workers are trained to provide a significant level of support and comfort to patients and their families. Hospice care is only resorted to when a life-limiting sickness fails to respond to treatments.

While hospice care doesn't elongate the patient's life or hasten death, it is designed to improve the overall quality of the patient's last days. The healthcare workers of hospice are trained to offer a specialized understanding of the necessary medical care.

How is Hospice Administered?

Hospice care is administered through a team-oriented approach of medicine. The workers are specially trained volunteers or caregivers, health care professionals, and even family members. These highly trained individuals work to address every symptom of the patient's disease with a keen eye for moderating the patients discomfort and pain.

Administering this type of health care involves a holistic approach, which includes social, emotional, and spiritual care of the patient, family, and friends. In addition to all of these services, hospice also offers a wide range of counseling and bereavement services to the family and friends both before and after the patient dies.

The Hospice Caregiver

Hospice programs administer palliative care, which is health care focusing on the holistic well-being of everyone involved, including the caregiver. Being a hospice caregiver can be an insanely demanding around-the-clock job. At the same time, being a hospice caregiver can be very rewarding.

However, as a caregiver it is important that you know how to ask for and accept assistance from others. In addition to being able to give the best possible hospice healthcare, accepting assistance allows others to have the opportunity of being of service.

Undoubtedly, care giving takes a significant time commitment. While actually knowing the amount of time required can be nearly impossible, caregivers frequently design rotation schedules with other trusted loved ones. In either case, caregivers will usually have to take a significant amount of time off of work at some period.

Where is Hospice Administered?

Generally, hospice care is provided in the patient's home, nursing home, or a friend's home where the patient is most comfortable. However, there are in-patient hospice care facilities available to assist if necessary. The entire hospice focus is on the comforting the patient, not on administering a cure for the illness.

Hospice staff is available for questions from caregivers 24 hours a day. The hospice staff is also readily available to conduct in-home visits at any time to manage any issue that may arise.

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The 5 Most Common Regrets of Palliative Care Patients

aadmin — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 14:11:54 +0000

As described in a recent article by AARP, palliative care can be a place filled with many emotions - denial, fear, anger, remorse, then eventually acceptance.

These are the 5 most common regrets of the dying listed by AARP:

1. Unfulfilled dreams.

Most people felt they had not realized even half of their dreams and faced death knowing their personal choices were the determining factors. AARP recommended that palliative care patients honor at least some of their dreams. One of the key choices was keeping healthy. Health is a gateway to freedom until they no longer had it.

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

Older generation male patients regretted missing their children's youth and their partner's companionship, trading in for lives on the the treadmill of work.

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.

People pleasing behavior may have helped keep the peace but led to suppressed feelings. The result was bitterness and a half-full, mediocre life.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Many palliative care patients felt they had become caught up in their own lives and had let golden friendships disappear over the years. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

Near the end of life, many people realize that happiness was a choice. Old patterns and habits had persisted. Their fear of change had them playing a safe life.

The AARP article ended: "Life is a choice. It is your life. Choose consciously, choose wisely and choose honestly. Choose happiness."

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Therapy dog assists at hospice

aadmin — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:04:11 +0000

Of all the services available to the hospice residents at a North Carolina facility, the one that gets the most attention comes with four legs, white fur and unassuming eyes.

His name is Wolfy, a husky and malamute mix, and initially came to the Greatrex Okace of Four Seasons Hospice and Palliative Care with his owner who suffered from Parkinson's disease, BlueRidgeNow.com reports.

The man eventually passed on.

Mark Neville, the music therapy coordinator at the facility, adopted the dog and continues to bring Wolfy in each day to meet with the residents.

"Two promises I was asked to make was: One, he was able to continue to visit other patients; and two, the patient's son was able to visit (Wolfy). While I'm the primary caregiver, (Wolfy) belongs to more than me," Neville told the news provider.

Wolfy, who was trained as a therapy dog, has had a positive effect on the staff members and residents at the hospice, according to the article. Neville said past studies have shown therapy animals have a definite calming effect and may lower blood pressure, elevate mood and facilitate life discussion.

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Teens bring birthday cheer to hospice

aadmin — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:04:11 +0000

With the same enthusiasm seen at some restaurants during a birthday announcement, some Illinois teenagers are bringing extra joy with a special kind of hospice care.

Rebecca Lenz is part of the Adventist St Thomas Hospice Birthday Brigade, a youth organization made up of 10 volunteers who visit hospice residents on their birthday, PinoneerLocal.com reports.

The program, which is constantly in danger of being understaffed whenever its volunteers go off to college, has organized approximately 30 visits overall for hospice patients, according to the article.

Recenlty Lenz visited Adeline Kulikowski on her 89th birthday and came bearing a card and balloon, according to the article.

"I heard there's a birthday!" said Lenz as she walked into Kulikowski's home, stated the website. The 89 year old smiled and accepted her presents, eager to speak with Lenz.

For Lenz, the program has a personal connection to her. She told the news provider her grandmother was a hospice patient and that she enjoys "bringing a little extra cheer to others in hospice care."

While Kulikowski's birthday party was full of family and friends, Lenz said often times her Birthday Brigade visits are to nursing homes, which can be a more personal affair, and the patients are always happy to see her.

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Hawaiian hospice to reopen

aadmin — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 13:04:09 +0000

A hospice located in a place many people have described as a paradise opens today after a five-month renovation.

The St. Francis Healthcare System of Hawaii has completed its project to upgrade the Nuuanu hospice center, which is the first of a two-phase $3.5 million modernization project, Pacific Business News reports.

Some of the improvements to Nuuanu include a 12-bed inpatient facility, new air-conditioning units, and a new interactive television system, according to the article.

The center also got exterior renovations such as a new roof, window sills, and new security cameras.

St. Francis is also making renovations to its other hospice center, the 24-bed Maurice J Sullivan Family Hospice Center in Eaw, scheduled to be completed in March.

For many patients and their families, hospices can be a welcome place for end-of-life care. In 1982, Congress ordered Medicare to pay for hospice care, allowing more facilities to be built.

A recent study showed that approximately 1.4 million people received hospice care in 2007, an increase of about 100,000 from the year before. There are about 4,700 hospice facilities in the U.S.

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New approach personalises end-of-life care

aadmin — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:04:11 +0000

North Yorkshire patients will enjoy a new end-of-life strategy that will bring more of a personalised focus on palliative care.

Through a multi-organisation agreement, the new strategy will deliver end-of-life care directly to the patient, instead of restricting them to certain facilities.

The agreement resulted from the North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust joining with the North Yorkshire County Council, City of York Council and other local organisations.

Christine Ward, a nurse consultant in adult palliative care, said in the past patients were admitted into hospitals or care homes for the last days or weeks of their life, the Ripon Gazette reports.

"Working together, in partnership with other health and social care organisations, will ensure we can streamline resources to provide the very best standard of care while giving the patient real options for where they spend the last weeks or months of their life," Ward told the Gazette.

Approximately 19 percent of the deaths in North Yorkshire occur in the patient's home, according to the article.

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Hospice nurse saves patients amidst Sylmar fire

aadmin — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 13:04:14 +0000

As the Thanksgiving holiday approaches, some California hospice patients may be extra grateful to have a certain nurse around.

As the Sylmar fire engulfed hundreds of homes in Orange County earlier this month, hospice nurse Michele Fauquier was risking her life to save patients from the Oakridge Mobile Home Park, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Fauquier, according to the article, got in her car and headed toward at the park.

She first saved a 57-year-old woman who suffers from multiple sclerosis by helping her out of her home.

Then the nurse went directly to the home of an 80-year-old woman who suffers from dementia who Fauquier knew slept through the previous evacuation alarm, the Times reports. She saved the woman, her two roommates and a pet bird.

Prior to her heroics, Fauquier was stopped by police who told her to leave the area. She refused.

When the dedicated hospice nurse finally returned to her own apartment, she found it was one of the 600 destroyed by the fire, stated the article. She soon returned to the Roze Room Hospice of the Valley to care for her patients.

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Singing group serenades end-of-life patients

aadmin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:04:13 +0000

Since 2005, a group of singers have been visiting hospices and facilitating end-of-life care through the power of song.

Wellspring, based out of Vermont, has performed more than 60 "sings" since it started the free service, the Addison County Independent reports. All the singers are volunteers and have donated a combined 457 hours and traveled approximately 1,579 miles.

Priscilla Baker is the coordinator of Wellspring and told the Independent the members of the group have varied singing experience.

"Our only requirement is that they sing from their hearts," said Baker in the article.

The service is an interesting one and may possibly provide hospice patients the very thing they need during end of life care.

In a 2001 study, it was found that music therapy can assist with communication between a family member and a patient.

There is also an element of release for both parties when music is incorporated into end-of-life care.

Approximately 1.4 million people received hospice care in 2007, an increase of about 100,000 from the year before. In the U.S., there are about 4,700 hospice facilities.

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OnePoint expansion continues

aadmin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:04:14 +0000

A hospice pharmaceutical provider is extending its emerging national reach to senior citizens in the Chicago area.

OnePoint Patient Care is an independent company that fills prescriptions and creates custom compounds for hospices around the country.

The company has served Arizona hospices for more than 20 years and only recently began expanding nationally to Florida, Oklahoma and Nevada.

More locations are planned for next year.

These local operations provide 24-hour accessibility as well as home deliveries to patients. OnePoint makes an average of 7,500 home deliveries a day.

News of OnePoint's expansion to service more hospices follows a recent report that more terminally ill patients are living little longer thanks to end-of-life facilities around the country.

Those who decided to enter a hospice survived an average of 29 days longer compared to patients who did not enter such a facility, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Also, it seems more people are taking advantage of hospice care. In 2007, approximately 1.4 million people received hospice care, an increase of about 100,000 from the year before.

In the U.S., there are approximately 4,700 hospice facilities.

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Rise in hospice usage

aadmin — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:04:12 +0000

More terminally ill patients are extending their life a little longer by taking advantage of hospices around the country.

In 2007, approximately 1.4 million people received hospice care, an increase of about 100,000 from the year before. About 41 percent of the patients who used hospices were diagnosed with cancer.

Those who decided to enter a hospice survived an average of 29 days longer compared to patients who did not enter such a facility, according to a new study from the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

The new figures were released in honor of National Hospice and Palliative Care Month. For the 30th consecutive year, the White House released a proclamation in honor of the initiative and hospice counselors who offered guidance during end-of-life situations.

"Through these and countless other acts of compassion, our nation's hospice caregivers lift up souls, offer peace of mind, and strengthen America's culture of life," said President George W Bush.

Hospice programs provide patients with pain management, symptom control, psychosocial support, and spiritual care. There are approximately 4,700 hospice facilities in the U.S.

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